The Bay Area offers spectacular rides from Santa Cruz to Vallejo for you to discover. Here is a handy guide to several of the Best of the Bay Area bike rides. And if you're willing to jump on a Capitol Corridors train, you can even cruise Sacramento on two wheels.

Photo: Jason Henry, Special To The Chronicle

The Bay Area offers spectacular rides from Santa Cruz to Vallejo...

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San Francisco to Marin County, 15 to 40 miles, easy to difficult

Photo: The Chronicle / John Blanchard

San Francisco to Marin County, 15 to 40 miles, easy to difficult

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Cyclists ride up the Battery East Trail, which was completed in 2012, on their leisurely way to the Golden Gate Bridge, the standard of Bay Area bike trips.

Photo: Jason Henry, Special To The Chronicle

Cyclists ride up the Battery East Trail, which was completed in...

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Tourists pedal along on the spectacular waterfront ride skirting the Maritime National Historical Park with its collection of ships from earlier eras.

Photo: Jason Henry, Special To The Chronicle

Tourists pedal along on the spectacular waterfront ride skirting...

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Robert Vonherrel rides through the tunnel at the top of Hawk Hill - named for the raptors seen overhead - in scenic Marin Headlands.

Photo: Jason Henry, Special To The Chronicle

Robert Vonherrel rides through the tunnel at the top of Hawk Hill -...

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A cyclist rides down the back side of the one-lane road at the top of Hawk Hill in the Marin Headlands in Marin, a two-wheeled descent to match any in Northern California.

Photo: Jason Henry, Special To The Chronicle

A cyclist rides down the back side of the one-lane road at the top...

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A cyclist rides on the bike path running under the Golden Gate Bridge coming from the west side bike lane in San Francisco.

Photo: Jason Henry, Special To The Chronicle

A cyclist rides on the bike path running under the Golden Gate...

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A Brazilian family stopped to take photos of the Golden Gate Bridge on their bike ride in San Francisco.

Photo: Jason Henry, Special To The Chronicle

A Brazilian family stopped to take photos of the Golden Gate Bridge...

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Pleasant Hill to Pleasanton, 20 miles, easy

Photo: The Chronicle / John Blanchard

Pleasant Hill to Pleasanton, 20 miles, easy

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Flat as a crepe for 20 miles and entirely by bike path. Ride BART to
Pleasant Hill and pick up the Iron Horse bike trail just outside the
station.

Photo: Paul Chinn, SFC

Flat as a crepe for 20 miles and entirely by bike path. Ride BART...

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Proceed south via Walnut Creek, Alamo and Danville.

Photo: Michael Macor, SFC

Proceed south via Walnut Creek, Alamo and Danville.

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A cyclist pedals over traffic on Ygnacio Valley Road in Walnut Creek. The Iron Horse Trail overcrossing was dedicated in May, 1998.

Photo: Michael Maloney, SFC

A cyclist pedals over traffic on Ygnacio Valley Road in Walnut...

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Half Moon Bay to Santa Cruz, 50 miles, moderate

Photo: The Chronicle / John Blanchard

Half Moon Bay to Santa Cruz, 50 miles, moderate

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When biking from Half Moon Bay to Santa Cruz, view the elephant seals of Año Nuevo State Park (make reservations for the $7 tour, the seals do not like drop-ins).

Photo: Courtesy Douglas Zimmerman

When biking from Half Moon Bay to Santa Cruz, view the elephant...

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Sacramento to Folsom, 25 miles, easy

Photo: The Chronicle / John Blanchard

Sacramento to Folsom, 25 miles, easy

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Ride an Amtrak Capitol train to Old Town Sacramento and set off east on the flat, meandering American River bike trail to Folsom.

Photo: Christina Ducklow/Special To The, SFC

Ride an Amtrak Capitol train to Old Town Sacramento and set off...

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Cyclists cross a bridge over the American River at Goethe Park on the American River Parkway bicycle trail in Rancho Cordova.

Photo: Steve Yeater, Special To The Chronicle

Cyclists cross a bridge over the American River at Goethe Park on...

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A bicyclist rides through a shady spot on the American River Parkway bicycle trail in Rancho Cordova.

Photo: Steve Yeater, Special To The Chronicle

A bicyclist rides through a shady spot on the American River...

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West Dublin to Fremont, 30 miles, difficult

Photo: The Chronicle / John Blanchard

West Dublin to Fremont, 30 miles, difficult

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The Water Temple at the Sunol Water Temple Agricultural Park.

Photo: Eric Luse, The Chronicle

The Water Temple at the Sunol Water Temple Agricultural Park.

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Vallejo to Pleasant Hill, 25 miles, moderate

Photo: The Chronicle / John Blanchard

Vallejo to Pleasant Hill, 25 miles, moderate

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From Vallejo, head east via Lemon Street and Benicia Road to downtown
Benicia and visit the original California state capital, which no longer
harbors lawmakers.

Photo: Stephanie Wright Hession

From Vallejo, head east via Lemon Street and Benicia Road to...

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Cross the Benicia Bridge on the broad bikeway to Martinez.

Photo: Sam Deaner, The Chronicle

Cross the Benicia Bridge on the broad bikeway to Martinez.

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And proceed along the Contra Costa Canal bike trail to the Pleasant Hill BART station.

Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle

And proceed along the Contra Costa Canal bike trail to the...

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Palo Alto-Portola Valley loop, 20 miles, moderate

Photo: The Chronicle / John Blanchard

Palo Alto-Portola Valley loop, 20 miles, moderate

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Get off Caltrain at downtown Palo Alto and take a spin through the Stanford campus.

Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle

Get off Caltrain at downtown Palo Alto and take a spin through the...

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Oakland to Orinda, 25 to 45 miles, difficult

Photo: The Chronicle / John Blanchard

Oakland to Orinda, 25 to 45 miles, difficult

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A difficult but rewarding ride is along Old Tunnel Road from Oakland to Orinda. On the way take a break and ride the Tilden Park Steam Train.

Photo: Darryl Bush, The Chronicle

A difficult but rewarding ride is along Old Tunnel Road from...

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If you use BART to get to your bike ride, board the last car of the train, which has designated bike spaces by the doors.

Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

If you use BART to get to your bike ride, board the last car of the...

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A cyclist rides down the back side of the one-lane road at the top of Hawk Hill in the Marin Headlands, a two-wheeled descent to match any in Northern California.

A cyclist rides down the back side of the one-lane road at the top...

Best of Bay Area bike trips get a lift from public transit #LoveLocalSF

A bicycle, that most perfect machine, gets even better when a train or a boat comes along for the ride. That's because a train or a boat is almost as noble as a bicycle. Not quite, but almost.

Trains and boats abound in these parts. The poet said there isn't a train she wouldn't take, no matter where it's going - and a cyclist feels muchyo the same about them. That goes for ferries and even pungent old diesel buses. Almost all allow bikes on board. Because of public transit, the variety of Bay Area bike trips is seemingly without end.

Bikes aren't just for getting to boring places, like work. Bikes are for getting to worthwhile places. Like bakeries. Also ballparks, breakfast joints and boardwalks.

Here are seven jaunts that start in one place and, because of public transit, often end in another. Leave your car at home. Pump the tires, lube the chain and stick a banana in your jersey pocket.

Pleasant Hill to Pleasanton

20 miles, easy

Flat as a crepe for 20 miles and entirely by bike path. Ride BART to Pleasant Hill and pick up the Iron Horse bike trail just outside the station. Proceed south via Walnut Creek, Alamo and Danville.

Good places to stop are Lawrence's outdoor barbecue at the Alamo Plaza shopping center and the Danville Depot museum, where you can go to the bathroom in a genuine caboose. On Sundays, there always seem to be kids running lemonade stands by the side of the trail. In San Ramon, take a break at the Olympic Pool and Aquatic Park ($4 a ticket) just west of the bike trail.

There's an aquatic play structure, bumper rafts and a two-story waterslide. The lifeguards don't seem to care if you are too old for the waterslide. Continue to the Dublin/Pleasanton BART Station.

Half Moon Bay to Santa Cruz

50 miles, moderate

Put your bike on the front rack of SamTrans bus 17 in Pacifica (have a pal drop you off at the Linda Mar bus stop), motor south through the new Devil's Slide tunnel (passable on bike but not recommended) and get off the bus in Half Moon Bay.

Fuel up with coffee and apple pie at Half Moon Bay Coffee Company. Start pedaling on Highway 1, keeping the Pacific Ocean on the right. According to the rules of geography, you will be southbound and cannot get lost for the 50-mile stretch to Santa Cruz.

The route has gentle climbs and wide shoulders. Pedal past such wonders as the pick-your-own-berry farm near Pescadero, the lighthouse at Pigeon Point and the elephant seals of Año Nuevo State Park (make reservations for the $7 tour, the seals do not like drop-ins). At Santa Cruz, pay a call on 100,000 monarch butterflies at Natural Bridges State Park (if they haven't flown back to the Rocky Mountains, their other hangout).

Get an ice cream cone at Marianne's and a caramel apple at Marini's and take a ride on the gut-wrenching Giant Dipper roller coaster ($6 a ride) at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk, which has been inducing passengers to relieve themselves of their ice cream cones and caramel apples ever since it opened in 1924.

Return to the Bay Area via the Highway 17 Express bus from downtown Santa Cruz to the Caltrain station in San Jose and then via Caltrain to points north.

San Francisco to Marin County

15 to 40 miles, easy to difficult

This is the new gold-plated standard of Bay Area bike trips. Cycling the Golden Gate Bridge (and returning to San Francisco by ferry), long a rite of passage to locals, is now a tourist mainstay, due largely to the bike rental stands sprinkled around Fisherman's Wharf like empty shrimp cocktail cups.

Take BART to Embarcadero Station and then pedal northwest, along the Embarcadero. Head west toward the big orange thing pictured on all the postcards. Climb over the Fort Mason hill, skirt the Marina Green, pick up the Presidio bike path past Crissy Field.

Skip the new Golden Gate Bridge pavilion unless you are short of overpriced refrigerator magnets and make your way to whichever bridge sidewalk is open to cyclists (it varies by day and time). Take care around wide-eyed bridge pedestrians, many from overseas, most of whom will not know what "on your left" means.

On a clear day, challenge yourself by climbing Conzelman Road to Hawk Hill, past the parked cars full of smoochers, and then down the one-way road to Rodeo Beach - perhaps the most spectacular two-wheel descent in Northern California. Continue to Sausalito and then keep going - the Sausalito ferry is always crowded and the additional 10 miles to the less crowded Tiburon or Larkspur ferry terminals is mostly flat and easy.

The boat ride south, back to the Ferry Building and the Embarcadero BART Station, is as good as a cruise ship and, thankfully, minus the shuffleboard and recycled lounge singers.

Vallejo to Pleasant Hill

25 miles, moderate

At the San Francisco Ferry Building, board the high-speed, high-spray Vallejo ferry for the one-hour trip to the Vallejo waterfront, passing East Brother Light Station and the Richmond oil refinery where James Bond fought off the bad guys in the 1980s.

In Vallejo, head east via Lemon Street and Benicia Road to downtown Benicia and visit the original California state capital, which no longer harbors lawmakers. It costs $3 to get in, less than what most lobbyists pay for Capitol access. Cross the Benicia Bridge on the broad bikeway to Martinez and proceed via Barrellessa Street, Alhambra Avenue and the Contra Costa Canal bike trail to the Pleasant Hill BART Station.

Or, if you can wait until fall, when the $5.6 million makeover of spectacular Carquinez Scenic Drive should be complete, you can pedal on one of the finest bike trails around, twisting and turning high above the Carquinez Strait back to the Vallejo ferry dock via Crockett and the always-empty Zampa bridge bike path.

Sacramento to Folsom

25 miles, easy

Ride an Amtrak Capitol train (the easiest place to board with a bike is the Richmond BART/Amtrak Station) to Old Town Sacramento and set off east on the flat, meandering American River bike trail to Folsom.

On the way, stop to feed the ducks, pick some blackberries and poke around the Nimbus fish hatchery. Stroll around old town Folsom, count the antique stores and then either pedal back on the bikeway to the Sacramento Amtrak depot or hop aboard the light-rail line from Folsom to Sacramento.

West Dublin to Fremont

30 miles, difficult

Get up close and personal with the drought. Ride south on Foothill Road to Sunol. Pay a visit to the 104-year-old Sunol Water Temple, and maybe, since it's a temple, put in a good word with the rain gods. Then start climbing Calaveras Road, a hot dry ascent with many turns and few cars.

Off to the left, the blue thing that seems to have shrunk to the size of the San Ramon swimming pool is the Calaveras Reservoir. Hold tight to the handlebars for the descent down "The Wall" into Milpitas, then proceed via Warm Springs and Mission boulevards to the Fremont BART Station.

If you want to do any more praying, stop at Mission San Jose (self-guided tour $3). You can also pray that no one is stealing your parked bicycle while you are inside.

Palo Alto-Portola Valley loop

20 miles, moderate

Get off Caltrain at downtown Palo Alto and take a spin through the Stanford campus. Pause at the Rodin sculpture garden and ponder his masterpiece, the "Gates of Hell," to get in the mood for the coming climb up Sand Hill Road.

This is horse country for the well-heeled Peninsula crowd and the equestrian centers abound. Cyclists in their tight black shorts can marvel at the horseback riders flying over the hurdles in their even tighter black pants. Off to the left, past the horsies, is the Stanford Linear Accelerator. It's 2 miles long (the longest and straightest building in the U.S.) and home to quarks and leptons and other particles that move even faster than the sophomore in spandex who just passed you.

In Portola Valley, invest in a cookie at Roberts Market and then glide back to campus and the Caltrain station via Alpine Road.

Oakland to Orinda

25 to 45 miles, difficult

Get off BART at the Rockridge station and pick up a cornmeal blueberry scone at the Market Hall bakery across College Avenue. It will come in handy on Old Tunnel Road, a steady, 5-mile climb.

At the top, take a break to look at the rock exhibit at the Sibley Volcanic rest stop. The last volcano was 10 million years ago, but keep going anyway. Continue climbing on Grizzly Peak Road to the Tilden Park Steam trains, the greatest contraption in the Bay Area. Take a spin through the trees and the tunnel on the model train, which costs $3 unless you are a dog (they ride free). Continue pedaling via newly repaved (finally!) Grizzly Peak Boulevard and Wildcat Canyon Road through Tilden Park.

If the steam train did its job, you may be ready for a ride on the stately Tilden carousel. Pause at Inspiration Point to see if there's any water left in San Pablo Reservoir down below, then descend carefully to Orinda. Board BART here or keep pedaling to BART stations in Lafayette (check out the famed ad hoc war memorial of white crosses north of the BART station), Walnut Creek (there's a great farmers' market featuring the Prairie Rose country music band) or North Concord via the Iron Horse and canal bike trails (more ducks to feed). Everything beyond Orinda is fairly flat.

Transit pointers

BART

The big silver cars are even more bike-friendly than before. Rules against bringing a bike on BART during rush hour have been scrapped. But noncommute hours are still best. Carry your bike up and down the stairs, all part of the exercise thing. (Bikes are not allowed on escalators, on the theory that if a cyclist somehow lets go of his bike, it will cascade down the escalator and knock over innocent bystanders like tenpins.) Board the last car of the train, which has designated bike spaces by the doors. Early on a weekend morning, cyclists in the rear car are often all alone and can pretend they are Leland Stanford or another robber baron in a private rail car. Riding an empty BART train to a bike ride is not like riding a crowded BART train to work. It turns out to be fun, of all things. Look out the window as the hills and rooftops of Alameda and Contra Costa counties sweep by. Pretend you are riding the monorail at Disneyland. Whee.

Ferryboats

The Sausalito ferry can be a mosh pit. Long lines of biking newbies wait with their clunky rentals to board. On crowded boats, bikes end up tossed together like a pile of puppies. If your legs will take you that far, try returning to San Francisco on the less-crowded Larkspur or Tiburon ferries instead. As for other lines, the Oakland ferry passes through the busy port and the giant Star Wars cargo cranes and the Vallejo ferry is a high-speed joyride across San Francisco and San Pablo bays that still allows plenty of time to hit the snack bar.

Amtrak and Caltrain

Use the designated cars with the bike symbol by the door. During peak times, bikes can get bumped by the conductor for lack of space. Grab an upstairs seat and watch the car lots, burger joints and grade-level crossings blend together. Amtrak has Wi-Fi, but if you use it you will miss the view of San Pablo Bay. The e-mail can wait.

Bus

Most Bay Area buses have bike racks in front. You lower the rack, lift your bike into the slots and secure the restraining bar. It takes only seconds, which is all the time many hurry-up bus drivers will tolerate. One caution: You never know if the two slots on the bike rack will be occupied by other bikes when your bus comes along, so plan accordingly. While you wait for the next bus, take a bike ride around the neighborhood. That's what you came to do in the first place, right?